Barnabas Aid Names Colin Bloom as New CEO After Board Removes Founder and Three Officials

On his first day as head of Barnabas Aid International in April 2024, Colin Bloom gathered his team and gave them a direct message. “We as an organization have done wrong,” he said. “We have to own our mistakes and corporately repent.” Bloom, a former Conservative Party politician with a background in business, leads the evangelical, UK-based charity that serves the persecuted church.

Bloom has since described his task with an image. He said it was like being in the cockpit of a crippled Boeing 747 that is plunging toward a mountain, needing to repair the plane in midair so it can keep flying. He added, with a grim smile, that “the previous captain is still trying to kick the door in.”

Many British evangelicals still ask what happened at Barnabas Aid, and some are now asking whether one part of the ministry can recover. The source reports that the board of trustees forced out founder Patrick Sookhdeo and three top officials in 2024. Bloom’s leadership is being tested by whether tough leadership, a clear commitment to doing the right thing, honesty and transparency can repair the damage. The source says not everyone is convinced, but that the answer may be yes.

Sookhdeo, a Christian convert from Islam, founded Barnabas Aid in 1993 and named it after Barnabas from the Book of Acts, whose name means “son of encouragement.” The ministry grew quickly into one of the largest organizations in the world serving the persecuted church, with annual spending in the tens of millions of dollars. It is now a family of international charities with branches in the United States, Australia, South Africa and elsewhere. Sookhdeo became known as an evangelical leader in Great Britain and also as a critic of Islam.

In 2014, Sookhdeo was arrested after a member of his staff accused him of calling her into his office and touching her inappropriately. The charity responded by closing ranks. The source describes a cursory internal investigation that exonerated Sookhdeo. Barnabas Aid said the accusations were untrue and malicious, an outrageous attempt to destroy Sookhdeo and the ministry.

Mark Woods, a Baptist minister and journalist who investigated Sookhdeo, said Barnabas Aid leaders were quick to use the “textbook” defense of any Christian leader caught in wrongdoing. According to Woods, they said critics were hostile to the work and ultimately to the gospel itself. “He was on the side of the angels,” Woods said. “To lose faith in him was, in a sense, to lose faith in the cause.”

The argument persuaded many of Barnabas Aid’s faithful donors, who cared deeply about helping the persecuted church. The British legal system, however, was not so easily influenced. Sookhdeo was tried and convicted of sexual assault and of two further charges of intimidating witnesses, after he was found to have pressured Barnabas Aid staff not to cooperate with the police. The court sentenced him to community service.

Source: Read the original report